This morning I got to my office and my computer wouldn’t come on. I called David Ray and he came in and did a reset. There are times when a device has too much going on, gets overloaded and you simply need to turn it off and on to reset it.
I also had a reset this past week to fix my Vertigo. Vertigo is typically caused by the crystals in your inner ear getting out of place. The result is dizziness and balance issues, among other things. You never know the crystals are there until you do something that gets them upset. Like turning your head in a way they don’t like. When that happens, the world spins, you’re suddenly dizzy and unable to function normally. It’s a horrible feeling. Well, on Monday afternoon, I went to a therapist who manipulated my head to get the crystals back into place. After a few minutes, she sat me back up and the vertigo was gone. She reset my crystals.
“The Covid-19 crisis, and the political, economic and social disruptions it has caused, is fundamentally changing the traditional context for decision-making. The inconsistencies, inadequacies and contradictions of multiple systems –from health and financial to energy and education – are more exposed than ever amidst a global context of concern for lives, livelihoods and the planet. Leaders find themselves at a historic crossroads, managing short-term pressures against medium- and long-term uncertainties.” This was the defining statement of the World Economic Forum in June 2020. It was called The Great Reset. Now the solutions they came up with are highly intrusive and take us another step closer to a one-world government, a one-world religion and a one-world existence on earth. Though it’s called the Great Reset, it technically isn’t a reset or they would have returned to the larger concept of a Creator and His purpose for mankind.
Reset is to return to the original design – the default setting. Today, most devices have a reset operation. Usually, it’s as simple as turning them off and then back on. We used to call it rebooting. It returns the innerworkings to how they were originally designed to operate.
Is there a spiritual reset button? Is there some way to get our lives back to how God intended them to operate?
Our minds are receptacles of thought. They collect information, consider what it means, then choose how to respond. We’re multi-faceted, and designed to handle multiple input and still function well. But what if the mind gets overloaded? What does that look like?
If we think of the information being received into our minds as voices speaking messages to us, what happens when those messages begin to compete for attention? What if they start a shouting match to occupy greater influence to control our lives?
· Secular reasoning: the voice of the world. It represents the world’s solution to our problems. Not always in agreement with what the Bible says.
· Expectations of others: the voice of those we consider important to us. We call it the voice in our head that challenges everything we do.
· Our personal need for validation: seeking affirmation. We want to know that we’re good and doing good things.
· Fleshly desires: the voice of our body looking for satisfaction.
· Our own inner voice: comparing and competing – the voice of the child than never grew up needing to do better or more than someone else.
· Satan’s voice to tempt us to deny who we are and live contrary to God’s best.
· Then there’s the general assortment of confusion: 1Tim 1:6 For some men, straying from these things [principles of truth], have turned aside to fruitless discussion, 7 even though they do not understand either what they are saying or the matters about which they make confident assertions.
· But finally, there is the voice of God. How do we silence the voices that keep us from hearing God? By resetting our default.
Matt 22:35 A lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, 36 "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" 37 And He said to him, " 'YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.' 38 This is the great and foremost commandment. 39 The second is like it, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets."
The Jews had 613 laws, rules they drew out of the 10 Commandments. If you can, imagine it as a to-do list with 613 things on it. Each one as important as the others. Those in charge made doing them a measurement of righteousness before God. And violating one of them made a person guilty of all of them.
That’s like 613 voices yelling at the same time, telling you to remember to do something. “That is important. Don’t forget this.” My brain would be so overloaded, my system would shut down. And guess what? So did the people under those obligations.
So, this really was a great question for Jesus to answer. Even though it was designed as a trap, it actually told them how they could reset their lives.
He said: let’s just go back to the original commands. Let’s summarize them like this: LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND and 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.
The first will cover the first 4 of the Ten Commandments. The second will cover the rest.
Talk about clearing the overload. 613 voices become one voice telling them two things to keep in mind. Jesus just reset their lives.
Paul did that for us: 1Cor 10:31 Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. A million expectations dissolved down to one – just live to glorify God.
Now, last week we looked at glorify as pictured by the moon reflecting the sun. Shining back in a way that says, “Look how bright the sun is.” It was found in Jesus’ words: Matt 5:16 Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.
Glorifying God is what happens when our lives are turned toward Him. It’s the reset for how we live, what we do, who we are – all of which reflecting back the greatness of God. Which then makes the purpose of our lives to demonstrate God is good – All the Time.
Accomplishing that isn’t tricky. We don’t force some unnatural effort to make God look good. He is good. We simply do whatever we do in such a way that it reflects accurately who He is. That’s glorifying Him.
John 15:8 My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.
What is fruit? It’s the natural product of a fruit-bearing tree. Natural being the key word. It is the expected outcome of what that tree is designed to produce.
Matt 21:19 Seeing a lone fig tree by the road, He came to it and found nothing on it except leaves only; and He said to it, "No longer shall there ever be any fruit from you." And at once the fig tree withered. 20 Seeing this, the disciples were amazed and asked, "How did the fig tree wither all at once?"
That was the wrong question. They should have asked why. Why did you do this?
A fruit tree that doesn’t produce fruit is a worthless tree. Other than decoration, it doesn’t serve the purpose for which it was designed. Rarely is a fruit tree shaped to give shade or its wood strong enough so that you can build things. Its only purpose is to produce fruit.
So, comparing us to fruit trees, Jesus is doing a reset on why we exist.
John 15:2 Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. 4 Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. 5 I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.
In an orchard, the gardener lifts, shapes and cuts back the branches so they can bear more fruit. To make the branches more productive. We know a pruned tree produces more fruit than a tree left to naturally grow however it chooses.
Why? Pruning provides the conditions by which fruit trees can be healthy and productive, which will increase the yield and quality of their fruit. Says a horticultural website.
When you prune a tree, you help stimulate the growth of new fruiting wood. This fruiting wood is the wood that creates more fruit spurs and will bear more fruit. A neglected tree will eventually have too much non-fruit producing deadwood, that drains away the life of the tree and must be cut off.
John 15:1 I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser…you are the branches. Or to fit our terms: Jesus is the trunk of the tree, we are the fruit-producing branches and the Father is the gardener.
As our gardener, He will shape, trim and prune us so that we can produce more fruit.
What is the fruit we are to produce? In general terms, it is the evidence of our relationship with the Father. It is a bi-product. A bi-product is what develops when you are doing something else. It’s not the target but the result of hitting the target.
Gal 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control;
These are expressions of a life under the control of the Spirit of God, actions that come from our default setting as Christians. The only reason we wouldn’t bear fruit is we choose not to.
There’s also the fruit of love: 1Cor 13:4 Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, 6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails.
Again, fruit is the expression of a life producing the qualities God expects from His children. The characteristics of love are the proof, the evidence that we belong to Him.
John 13:35 By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.
A fruit tree is known by its fruit. Matt 7:16 Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? 17 So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 So then, you will know them by their fruits.
If I go to the nursery to buy a fruit tree, unless there’s a label there telling me what the tree will produce, I won’t know an apple from a fig tree until the fruit shows up. In the same way, the fruit of our lives is the proof we are Children of God.
Which takes us to the point in Jesus’ teaching that has always been confusing to me. The principle of abiding.
John 15:5 I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.
I understand all the other words but get hung up on that one word: abide. But if that one word is the key to me bearing fruit, it must be important. The Greek word for abide means “to stay, to remain where you have been placed, not to depart, not to leave, to continue to be present: to remain as you are, not to become another or different.”
That makes much more sense. To remain where you have been placed. To stay.
In training dogs, an essential command is to stay. From that position, the dog is ready for the next command. It may be to roll over or sit up or fetch or attack. Stay is the position of readiness for what comes next.
In the Bible, the word is translated more times as stay than abide. I don’t fully understand the word abide but I do understand the word stay. This means we must remain or stay vitally connected to the Vine. Don’t leave and go off thinking we can do better someplace else.
Being where we ought to be is a command position from which we are ready to obey the next command. It’s how Jesus lived. Go back to Jesus’ ultimate mission statement – the one sentence that covered everything He did on Earth including the cross.
John 6:38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.
That’s the heart of one so connected to the Father that He could say at the end: John 17:4 I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do.
How did Jesus glorify the Father on earth? Same way He told us to: Matt 5:16 Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.
How do we do that? By letting fruit grow that reflects who we are in reference to expressing the goodness of God.
Plug all of this in: If we are to produce fruit that glorifies God, we must remain attached to the tree that is the source of that fruit which is Jesus. Obviously, a limb can’t run off and try to function without being attached. It needs the life of the tree flowing through it.
Then, if you stay, even if you aren’t producing, God will lift you up, trim off the withered parts and prop you up. He will prune you so that you can be more productive in your Christian life, bearing fruit that only comes when we honor Him.
That define us. It’s the reason – the why – and the purpose behind living the Christian life. We live to glorify God. It resets our default to live in such a way God is honored as our lives reflect His goodness. We stay. He prunes. Fruit happens as Jesus flows His life through us.
TAKEAWAYS:
- Abiding is not some mysterious spiritual gyration we have to perform.
- It is merely staying connected to our source for life – Jesus.
- Life is designed to operate as we live to reflect God in our actions and thoughts.
- Abiding is conscious awareness I am where God wants me, ready to do whatever He wants me to do.
- The fruit of my life proves who I am and how important He is.
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